Demonstrators from UAW 4121 protest a since-revoked federal regulation that wouldn't have allowed international students to remain in the country if they were taking only online classes on July 13 in downtown Seattle.
In June 2001, academic student employees (ASEs) at the UW arranged a strike during finals week, leaving papers ungraded, exams canceled, and students toiling away without guidance. The strike was the culmination of three years of student organizing and a new affiliation with the United Auto Workers (UAW), a union representing the University of California system.
At the time, UW teaching assistants taught nearly 60% of introductory courses and frequently served in supplementary roles — such as tutors, graders, and section instructors — in large, upper-division courses.
Two weeks later, the strike concluded, coinciding with the termination of spring quarter teaching assistant appointments. Due to legislative impediments regarding the right for ASEs to bargain collectively under one union, it wasn’t until 2004 that members of the UAW Local 4121 — sometimes shortened to the 4121 — ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with the UW.
Today, the 4121 represents more than 6,000 workers. As an amalgamated subsidiary of the UAW, both ASEs — research and teaching assistants, trainees, fellows, and those serving in supplementary course roles — and postdoctoral scholars (postdocs) enjoy solidarity and share resources through the union, but the two groups negotiate separate contracts.
By leveraging their collective power, ASEs and postdocs have equalized the employee-employer relationship and successfully negotiated higher wages, lower out-of-pocket expenses, improved working conditions, and a more inclusive campus climate.
The 4121 also actively contributes to cross-community social justice efforts and participates in many levels of electoral and legislative advocacy. Most recently, the 4121 has publicly promoted and volunteered for Nikkita Oliver and Kshama Sawant’s Seattle City Council campaigns, supported congressional legislation that advocates for human rights, and co-hosted West Coast Housing Justice Forums alongside other ASE labor organizations. Union members also participate in community and city-wide advocacy efforts through a variety of working groups, including climate justice, contract enforcement, and health care.
Both ASEs and postdocs negotiated new contracts in 2021. ASEs won increases to their existing child care expenses fund, health insurance improvements such as lowered out-of-pocket costs for out-of-network mental health care, and wage increases for both salaried and hourly workers.
Sam Sumpter, vice president of the 4121 since 2019, joined the union in 2014 and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the UW.
Sumpter was unfamiliar with unions when they initially joined, but after getting involved with the trans equity working group, they began to recognize the 4121’s potential for community engagement.
“I realized pretty early on in graduate school that it wasn’t enough for me to just be thinking about things and to be engaging in academia by building theory,” Sumpter said. “I also wanted to be doing things that had a material impact on the world … Getting involved through the union was sort of the first time I ever really saw firsthand what it meant to be empowered… We could see a problem and actually do something about it in a way that stuck.”
An early organizer of Empowering Prevention & Inclusive Communities (EPIC), a joint effort between the union and the UW, Sumpter describes EPIC as a chance to build a campaign from its roots and an excellent example of what can be accomplished when the 4121 and the university collaborate.
Left to right Sam Sumpter and Vern Harner stand on the steps of Suzzallo Library. Sumpter and Harner are members and leadership representatives for UAW 4121, the union representing academic student employees and postdocs.
“Programs like EPIC … are really good evidence of how successful joint initiatives can be … for transforming not just the lives of ASEs, but our entire community,” Sumpter said. “That kind of work is something that I’m hoping to see admin continue investing in because it can have such a big impact on our entire university.”
Later this year, Sumpter plans to initiate a housing affordability campaign and continue to support underrepresented student workers through the anti-discrimination working group.
“We know... from the equity surveys that we’ve run over the past several years that, unsurprisingly, folks who are BIPoC, trans and queer, disabled, international, and caregivers all experience just much worse dynamics at the university that often lead to dropping out or taking much longer to be able to complete a degree,” Sumpter said.
Levin Kim, a head steward at the 4121 and a doctoral student at the Information School, joined the union in 2019 and has previously worked as both a teaching assistant and resident adviser at the UW. Kim is devoted to the international solidarity working group, which supports international and undocumented students with proactive problem-solving and advocacy. Kim became heavily involved in spring of 2020 when helping non-citizen students determine how to safely advocate for racial justice.
Like many students, Kim’s experience at the UW has been marked by pandemic-related disruptions, but they have found comfort in the 4121 community.
“We had a social picnic a couple weeks ago,” Kim said, referring to the July 2 celebration in Cowen Park. “It was the first time that I was able to meet so many of the people that I had spent a lot of time on Zoom with and it just made me so viscerally happy… It reminded me that I’m not as isolated as I think I am.”
Kim is also grateful for the insights into institutional power and points of change that union engagement has provided.
“I really wanted to understand how power works at the university,” Kim said. “I think being involved with the union has given me that kind of education.”
Vern Harner, a head steward at the 4121 and a doctoral candidate in the UW School of Social Work, joined the union in 2016 and has worked as a teaching assistant, resident adviser, and instructor at the UW.
“I didn’t even know that student employees could unionize,” Harner remarked. “The union has become a really, really important part of my life at UW. It’s a way to connect with folks from other departments who are involved in different movements than yourself, to build solidarity across those, and also learn how I can get involved in different things, especially during the pandemic.”
As thousands of new undergraduate and graduate students matriculate at the UW this fall, Harner hopes that the campus community will recognize the valuable contributions of academic employees and the validity of their agitating for improvements in wages, benefits, and working conditions.
“I’m a doctoral candidate, which is already a full-time job … On top of it, I have my academic student employee positions, which is an additional 20 hours a week of work,” Harner said. “We should not be forced to live in poverty or to work an additional two or three jobs in addition to being students and academic student employees or postdocs.”
Reach contributing writer Kelly Hunter-Lynch at specials@dailyuw.com Twitter: @khunterlynch
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